Chapter Text
It was a true miracle that the storm had left every building in their little town standing.
It was something even more than a miracle that the overall damage had been kept to such a minimum. The flood waters had quickly moved away, drained into the sand and washed away further into the wastes, and all that was left to show for the torrential rain aside from the remaining puddles and sticky ground underfoot were the still-gray skies and the superficial damage to the surrounding homes. Just chipped paint, a broken shutter or two, and piles of sand where there hadn’t been any before.
Thunder still rolled overhead, but it was light and distant. The humidity was disgusting as well, the air heavy and hot and almost to thick to breathe in. More rain would fall before long, and it likely wouldn’t fully pass them by for another day or two, but the worst had passed. Any more that fell from the scattered storms that followed in the wake of what they’d just weathered would be mild.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here for a few more hours?” Aurie asked, not for the first time. She stood in the doorway just behind Knives as she glanced over what the storm had left them with. “Once the sun’s out the humidity will dry right up and it’ll be an easier trip. It isn’t good to have children out in this weather.”
Knives didn’t even pretend to consider her offer. He knew now that she’d be happy to keep them both for however long it took for the weather to truly clear and return to it’s blistering average, but he already felt as though he had overstayed his welcome. There was no need to continue to impose on her hospitality.
At least that was what he’d first told her. Truth be told, he couldn’t endure another day of Aurie seeing right through his skin and down to everything he kept buried away. “It isn’t a long enough walk to worry about, and everyone will feel better once I’ve got her home. I’ll repay the favor as soon as everything’s settled.”
“’Repay?’ Child, you’re not in any debt to me! I would’ve done that for anyone.”
Knives simply ignored her. It didn’t matter if she expected payment or not. If that sentiment changed, he would rather not find out later down the road. “I’m not as good with repair work as my brother, but if there’s anything that needs fixing I can take care of it.”
“Well, then.” Aurie glanced at him, and Knives refused to meet the look. “Isn’t that a turnaround? Alright, if you insist. If there’s one thing this rain is good for is letting me know where the roof needs attention, but there shouldn’t be another storm for a while. I’m in no real hurry to patch it up.”
“That is fine.” Knives said as he took Violet’s outstretched hand. “I’m sure that my help will be needed if anything at home has been damaged. But I’ll return here as soon as it’s finished.” After he spoke, Knives did his best to hurry Violet through her good-bye so they could leave before the old woman could come up with any excuses to keep them longer. But when he tried to take the first step away, he found that Violet had rooted herself to the ground. She stared up at him with a pout and her heels dug into the muddy ground. “What? Is something wrong?”
Violet shook her head, but let his hand go to instead lift both her arms up in a clear demand to be carried.
“Oh, come on now.” Aurie laughed at his expression before he even had the chance to tell Violet no. “Why don’t you just pick her up?”
Please. Don’t encourage this! “She has two perfectly fine legs. She can walk.” Knives spared the old woman a glare before he turned it back towards the child. “Isn’t that right?”
Violet kept her hands up, the only change he could see was in the straight, disappointed look she was now giving him.
She wasn’t going to give in so easily.
“You might as well carry her on home. It’d be hard enough for her little legs to keep up with yours if the ground was dry! But in all this mud? She’d be tripping up every ten steps.” Aurie once again had the audacity to chuckle and find fun in his struggles. “Besides, it isn’t as though she weighs more than the baskets you carry to the market every weekend! If you can insist on coming round here to fix things up then you’ve got plenty of strength to spare to carry your niece home.”
Knives could feel the stare that the old woman was giving him. Though the mark his own hand had left on Violet’s wrist the previous night had long since faded, she had seen it and she hadn’t been shy about her disapproval. If he were to ignore Violet’s request this time as well… “Fine.” Knives gave in with a groan. “If it’ll speed things up.”
Aurie did have a point, after all. The sooner he got Violet home the sooner she would be back within her parent’s care and the sooner he could retreat into the guest bedroom and hide away from the world for a while. Maybe even the rest of the day, if he was lucky.
At least, that was what he planned on telling himself. But when Violet let out a shrill but excited squeal that hurt his ears as he picked her up, and giggled in delight as she settled herself on his shoulders and fisted both her hands in his hair… Well, it was hard to lie as well as he usually could in such conditions as those.
Violet, blessedly more well-behaved than her sister was, kept herself quiet for the majority of their walk back. She’d only spoken up a handful of times to point out a worm buzzing through the air, or a cloud she saw that she thought resembled one thing or another. It was peaceful, it was almost nice despite the mud and the humidity that felt sticky against his skin.
But all good things eventually came to an end.
Even if Knives was content to dredge through the sand that stuck to his shoes and sank beneath the weight of each step, the child was not. When her home finally came into view and the red paint of the door was visible, Violet broke her silence and began to show that she and Ava were, in fact, twins. “I’m sorry, Knives.” She said, quiet and ashamed.
“It’s alright.” There was only one thing she could be apologizing for, and even if it had come later than he wanted it, there was no use in doing anything but accepting it. “Everything turned out fine. You’re going to need to apologize to Vash and Wolfwood, they were the most worried about you.”
“They were?” The slightest hint of guilt began to creep into her voice.
“Of course they were. Wouldn’t you be if they disappeared? Or if your sister did?”
Violet was quiet as she considered what that might be like. “I think I’d cry if Ava left.”
“Do you think she cried when you vanished yesterday?”
“I hope not.” She said, hardly more than a whisper. “Knives?”
It took considerable strength not to groan, but somehow he managed. “What now?”
“If they worried because I was gone, and if I would worry if they were gone, why didn’t they worry before you came home?”
Oh, if she had any idea how that sounded… “They were worried.” Knives told her, without the slightest hint of a lie. “Just… In a different kind of way.” He didn’t doubt that they had been worried - or more accurately, scared - at least for a while. But they would have feared his return rather than the possibility that he wouldn’t show his face again.
But he didn’t know how to explain that to a child, and Violet didn’t need to learn about his history.
Not yet, at least.
Violet wasn’t satisfied to leave his explanation at that. Unaware of just how close she was pushing him towards a still-raw wound, she asked again. “What way?”
“That’s complicated.”
“How?”
“I don’t…” Knives ground his teeth, then sighed. Violet’s questions weren’t quite as grating as Ava’s tended to be, but they were still just as incessant. He wouldn’t yell this time, though. Not again, not to either one of them. “They worried for you because it was dangerous out last night. It wasn’t dangerous for me.”
“Not even when it rained before?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
Dredging deep into his memory, Knives fished up the worst excuse that Rem had ever fed him. Not the worst as in the least useful, but worst because of just how ironclad it had been back then. “Because I’m a grown-up.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
“Good.” Knives relaxed too soon.
“Knives?”
God, please make her stop. They were so close to the end of their walk. “What?”
“I’m glad you came home. You’re not going to leave and go away for a long time again, are you?”
Leave? Knives’ steps faltered, and he felt himself come to a stop. Was he going to leave? He was shocked to discover that he didn’t know anymore. For as many times as he had tried to sneak away, as many times as he’d offered to slink back into the deserts so his brother’s family could pretend that he was as good as dead just as they had before… “I don’t know if I will.” Knives told her, unsure of what he would do if he returned to his previous life. “But it won’t be for a while.”
“Promise?”
He’d leave someday, though. He wouldn’t have a choice.
Violet’s home was so close now. It looked to be untouched by the worst of the rain. The tarps over their garden seemed to have held, at least. But where it stood alone in the sands suddenly felt lonely rather than the haven it’d felt like before. It was safe, secluded like it was. Perfect for Vash’s family to hide and bask in their newfound peace. Perfect for Knives to take refuge as well, but… It wasn’t his home, it wasn’t his family. Even the room he stayed in wouldn’t be a guest space forever. Violet and Ava would grow, and they’d each want their own space eventually.
Sooner or later, there wouldn’t be any room for him left. “I promise that I will try.”
As though she could sense the nervous turn his thoughts had taken, Violet let them walk the rest of the way home in silence. She kept still where she sat on his shoulders, and even let her grip in his hair loosen.
At least until her father and the dog came into her view, and waved towards them both. Violet turned wiggly the moment she spotted him, and Knives had to stop to let her down before she managed to make herself fall. Once her feet were firmly planted onto the sand, she took off at a run towards the preacher, who seemed to brace himself for her impact. Knives caught the whoof of breath that escaped him and the slight wince as her head made direct impact to his gut.
Knives followed behind at a slower pace while Bear barked over and over again, and Wolfwood dropped the sand-caked shovel he’d been holding so he could scoop the girl up into the air.
“There you are!” He squeezed her tight before he set her back down. “You are in so much trouble, you hear me? Go on in, everyone’s been waiting.” He seemed to intend to come off seriously when he spoke, but Knives could have felt his relief from iles away.
Violet skipped back towards the house with Bear at her heels, leaving Knives and Wolfwood standing out front. “She give you much trouble?” Wolfwood asked with a hand rubbing at the back of his neck, clearly still embarrassed over Violet’s actions.
“No, it wasn’t that bad.”
“Good.” The preacher still grimaced, “Really though, I said it already but we really are sorry-”
“If I hear that from you one more time I will cut out your tongue.” Knives did not hesitate to make the threat, almost even meaning it. “Violet chose to do what she did, it wasn’t as though you sent her after me.”
“-for sending you out with a shopping list when a storm was brewing?”
Okay, that at least was fair. “I’ll accept one for that.”
“We could’ve done without those things. I should’ve just used up what we already had here instead of worrying about more. Wouldn’t have hurt any of us to open up some cans instead of eating fresh for a few days. All I did was risk the both of you, so actually it was my fault.”
“It’s fine. No one got hurt.” Knives looked towards the door that had been left ajar. No noise carried outside. Even Bear had gone quiet. “Are you actually planning to punish her for this?”
“I… probably not.” Wolfwood seemed to have started with the conviction to say yes, but it ran out in the same exact second with the rush of a sigh. “She was scared last night, wasn’t she?” He asked, and then shook his head when Knives nodded. “Then she’s probably learned her lesson. It wouldn’t do any good to make her feel any worse.”
“Good.”
Wolfwood gave him a short look at that, but nodded and turned around before Knives could question him for it. “Come on back in, then. You’ve got to be just as tired as she is.”
Knives didn’t give a response, and Wolfwood hadn’t waited for one. The sand clung to their shoes, but as awful out as it was, it was nice to be able to step inside without having to brush away loose sand from their clothing.
The house was almost eerily silent as they entered.
“Where is Vash?” Knives asked over the creaking of the front door. Wolfwood had tried to close it as gently as possible, but the hinges still squealed as loudly as they would have if he’d chosen to slam it shut.
“Still asleep. He’s probably going to be out for the rest of the day-”
“Too late for that. I’m up.” The voice came from just above them. Knives looked up to see Vash dragging himself down the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing as he went.
“What’re you doing awake?”
To Knives, ‘awake’ seemed like a strong word to use for the state that Vash was in. Hair in an even greater state of disarray than Knives was accustomed to, eyelids that seemed to weigh too much to keep open, and listing ever so slightly to the side… No, he did not appear to actually be awake. Knives had thought that he had been tired, with the cloudiness that slowed his thoughts and the light static that had begun to play around the edges of his vision. But now? He suddenly felt that he had much more energy left to spare.
“I got jumped.” Vash explained, gesturing back where he’d come from. “The criminals have already fled the scene.”
Criminals? Knives only had the time to wonder what he’d meant by that for a moment, before the sound of giggling and small feet running muffled through the floor above them. Ah.
“They know better than to do shit like that.” Wolfwood grumbled, then dropped his eyes from the ceiling to where Vash stood, swaying ever so slightly. With a distinctly unimpressed look, he gestured Vash back up the stairs. “Go back to sleep, I’ll see that they keep it down.”
“No. ‘s fine.” Vash might have intended to frown at the suggestion or maybe even send Wolfwood a glare for it. But instead all he managed to do was look confused as he took one last unsteady step to the ground floor. “I don’t wanna lose the whole day.”
“The clouds are still low. It’s not going to have all blown through for another couple of days. I can take care of everything myself for that long, and we’ve got some extra help now. Just go and rest.” The argument came so easily that Knives knew right away that it might as well have come from a script, but the resignation that was clear on the preacher’s face told him that the argument was not one that Wolfwood often won.
“Don’t wanna.”
“You are no better than Ava.”
Knives couldn't tell if Vash had just ignored the comment, or if he simply wasn’t awake enough to process it. “Gonna make breakfast.”
“Is that a good idea?” Knives had to ask as Vash shoved his way past the both of them to stumble through the doorway on unsteady legs.
“You will set the kitchen on fire again.” Wolfwood called after him, but all he got in response was a short, sweet, and oh-so reassuring:
“Nuh-uh.”
Knives had only really been awake and out of bed for a scarce handful of hours, and already it was feeling as though he’d been awake for a solid twenty-four and counting.
“I hate that he does this.”
“Does it happen often?” Knives asked, and the hard stare that he was given was answer enough. “I see.”
“I’d just give in and babysit him but…” The preacher dragged a hand down his face, “I just got a good look at what the thomas sheds look like and the sand that got under the tarps… I don’t want to leave that mess to just get worse.”
“Go and take care of it, I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Yeah? You’re sure?”
“I don’t have anything else that I have to do.” That was true, and well… If the alternative was shoveling wet sand and mud out of stalls already musty with the oddly dusty smell of wet bird… It was hardly a question of which he’d prefer. Besides that even, Aurie’s advice was still loud in his own mind. “And you said again just now, so I take it that he has actually set something on fire before?” Once more, all Knives needed to know the answer was the expression that Wolfwood offered him. “That’s a yes, then?”
“A few times.” Wolfwood at last admitted.
“Then I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” With Vash in such a state, it couldn’t be all that difficult to keep him in line, could it? Knives turned to follow his brother, but Wolfwood called after him just as he went to pass through the doorway.
“Knives?”
“Yes?” He looked over his shoulder to see Wolfwood standing where he’d been left, but there was something new to the way he stood. No longer as relaxed as he’d been, the tension that had been relived by his and Violet’s return home had come back, easily visible in his shoulders and the line of his mouth.
“Thanks.” He said after a single aborted start. “For everything.”
“There’s no reason…” Knives began, then trailed off. This wasn’t about breakfast, or babysitting Violet, he realized. Wolfwood had already thanked him for both. It was something else. “It’s no trouble.” Knives said instead.
For everything. Unsure of just how much that encompassed, and suddenly feeling just the slightest bit ill from the way that gratitude seemed to form an oddly nauseous feeling in his throat, Knives hurried after Vash before either Wolfwood or himself could manage to make the air even more tense.
He found Vash in the kitchen standing in front of the fridge with the door wide open, letting all the cold out. His face wasn’t entirely blank while he stared inside looking just a tiny bit confused, but it was a close thing. That was just fine, though. A spaced-out Vash was a much easier one to take by surprise.
Before Vash had the time to realize he wasn’t alone in the kitchen, Knives cleared his throat. He could just pull Vash out of the way, but he’d learned now that startling him out of sleep did not give the best sort of result, and though slowed as he was Knives felt safe assuming that giving him even just a minor scare now wouldn’t be much better.
“Knives? You need something?” Vash still jumped at the sound, but there was nothing more behind it than the slightest of surprise. Now that his presence was known, Knives didn’t have to waste any more time before taking care of what he felt needed to be done. He (gently) took hold of Vash’s shoulder, and hauled him from the floor and into one of the stools at the counter. “Hey- what’re you- HEY! What the hell was that for?”
“Let me do it.”
Vash glared at him, but thank god stayed in his seat. “You think I can’t?” He asked, “Just because Wolfwood said I set the kitchen on fire once or twice doesn’t mean it happens all the time!”
Knives took his space at the stove and shot him a glance. “Were you drugged those times as well?”
Vash did appear to deflate a little at that. “…Most of them.”
“I thought you knew how to cook.”
“I do! It was just…” Vash started strong, then trailed off before he finished with a weak attempt at an excuse. “Circumstances.”
“Circumstances.”
“Fine.” Vash bit out. “Drug hangovers and… One time I tried to flamb é something but it had way too much rum in it.”
That was something Knives could picture all too easily. No further questions necessary, Knives opened the fridge again, and grabbed his best guess as to what it was Vash was looking for and snatched the mixing bowl and wooden spoon from out of Vash’s reach.
“So! I can do this so give those back!”
“No.” Knives slammed everything down as far from Vash as he could get. “I’m not doing this just to keep you from burning your own house down. I want you to show me how to cook.”
Unprepared for anything except an argument about his current ability to cook, Vash paused, confused and taken back by the request. “What?”
“Whatever you were going to make. Teach me.”
Vash gave him a needlessly suspicious once-over. “…why? Don’t you know? I remember Rem teaching both of us.”
Knives remembered having those lessons. He remembered how to be sure that the vegetables were washed properly and meat cooked to a safe temperature and how to keep a pot of noodles from boiling over. He knew how to follow a recipe from a cookbook just fine. But it had been decades since he’d last cooked anything himself for himself that he didn’t eat just for the calories he needed to keep moving.
Out on his own in the sands, he skewered worm over fire and cooked the occasional unripe cactus fruit just long enough to leech out enough of the tannins to make it edible. Before his defeat he did eat well on the few occasions that he chose to indulge himself and allow pleasure to mix with food and have something bathed in a heavy sauce, or have a rich dessert and a bright-tasting drink, but those creations were never his own.
The food that Vash and Wolfwood offered him was all good. Though it never reached the heights of what he’d had in his long life, he enjoyed it just as much. The meals they made were simple but comforting in their own ways. The recipes that the preacher tended to gravitate towards were especially so. Big pots of hearty stews and soups, heavy fried foods and potatoes done up in a hundred different ways. Heavy in carbs and calories and always far more of it than they could eat on their own. What Vash made was comforting in it’s familiarity when he followed the recipes that Rem had given them so long ago - but equally strange when he drifted away from them and towards unusual, sometimes off-putting, but still perfectly good concoctions he sometimes threw together when there wasn’t much in the house but no one felt like going out to do the shopping.
Any and all of what they made was better than the survival food that Knives was capable of throwing together. “I don’t know how to make things that taste good.” He explained, “I need to learn if I’m going to be living like this, don’t I?”
“I guess.” Vash agreed, but he hardly seemed thrilled at the idea.
“I could take some extra work off yours and Wolfwood’s hands. So, will you show me?”
“Okay. Yeah, why not? It’s just pancakes.” Vash caved, too tired to put up any more of an argument and aware that keeping the act up would only make him look and feel more childish, but he still didn’t look happy about it. Looking towards the cabinets, he tried to stand. “I’ll just get what we need-“
“No. I’ll do it. Sit down and tell me what it needs.”
“I’m tired, you know. Not stupid.”
“You can be both.”
“I don’t need you of all people to start babying me.”
“You don’t.” Knives agreed, keeping his eyes down so he wouldn’t have to see the expression that Vash had to be wearing to match the tone of his voice. “And I’m not trying to. Just tell me what it needs.”
Finally, Vash allows Knives to bully him into sitting still at the counter. “Flour, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, baking soda, and seltzer. Got that?”
“I think so.” Knives pulled everything that Vash rattled off and set each part down so he could see and be sure that he’d picked the right kinds. Knives didn’t think that he’d manage to get any of it wrong, but when there were three different kinds of flour sitting next to each other… it was possible. “That’s it?”
“Yeah.” Vash nodded with hardly a glance over it all. “Wolfwood picked up some apple butter and some walnuts last weekend, so we can just put some of those on top. The girls will be thrilled.”
With everything set out, Knives had no reason to wait. He handed off a few smaller bowls for Vash to portion out some of the ingredients for him just to give him something to do. “Violet and the old woman that runs the inn told me a lot last night.”
Vash found something in that statement to cringe over. “Oh, god. Please don’t tell me.”
“Apparently you’re this town’s worst kept secret.” Knives had spent some time considering whether or not it would be best to pass on that information, not wanting to risk adding additional stress to the already present underlying fear of being found out if they were not already aware. But he’d eventually settled on informing them. After all, it would be best to be as prepared for the worst as possible.
“Oh.” Vash relaxed, the somewhat pained look he’d had vanished. So they had known. “Was that all?”
“Is that not worrying?”
“No, not really.” Vash said as he passed a bowl of flour and sugar that he hadn’t bothered to properly measure back to Knives. “Aurie clocked me pretty fast, but she didn’t go spreading it around. It took time for most everyone else.”
“And you’re fine with that?” Knives asked.
Vash shrugged, completely unconcerned. “Hasn’t been a problem yet.”
“And if it becomes one?”
“It won’t.”
“Vash-”
“It won’t.” Vash cut him off. “But… If it does, there’s a plan. Most people here actually give a fuck that I - that everyone here - stays safe. There are people here that’d help hide me until we can get out. That’s as good as it gets. Add some more of that.”
Knives added another splash of milk. He didn’t understand how either Vash or the preacher could be so calm about having their identities known. Even if what Vash said was true, the risk still felt too great to Knives. Aurie said that the damage that trying to claim the bounty, should that money even exist, could result in would be too high to be worth the trouble. But that was just what the old woman said. All it would take was one desperate individual to shatter their peace.
But - fine. If Vash refused to discuss that now, he could always return to it later. Or even bring it up to Wolfwood. Strange as it seemed, that man managed to be so much more open than his brother was about these things.
But that still left one thing that Knives wanted an answer for. “I also wanted to ask about the medication everyone else seems to know about.”
Vash, ever so dramatic, groaned and let his head drop to the counter with a sound that suggested it wasn’t too gentle. “What about it?”
“The way that everyone has spoken about it has been concerning.” Knives answered, “Is it really as serious as it’s been made out to be?”
“It hasn’t been made out to be anything. It’s just a painkiller, why would it be serious?”
With the way you avoid it, why wouldn’t it be? “Why try to hard to avoid it, then?”
“I don’t like it.” Vash answered as though it was truly that simple of a reason.
“Does it not work?”
“It works fine.”
“Then the issue is..?”
“I don’t need you getting on my ass about this too, you know.” Vash turned his head to the side so he could look at Knives without going to the trouble of lifting his head up. There was a small red mark on his forehead. “It make me sleep for the whole day and it’s really hard to stay awake even after it’s supposed to have worn off.”
Knives waited, but after a few moments passed he realized that was all Vash had to say. “Really? That’s all?”
“Is that not good enough?”
“I’d thought the side effects would have been worse.” Knives finished mixing the batter and tilted the bowl for Vash to check. “If that’s all that bothers you then why don’t you take it more often? I’ve noticed days that it seemed you could have benefited from having something like that.”
“You don’t need to be worrying-”
“It wasn’t just me.” Knives said before Vash could get too offended too soon. “Violet expressed a great deal of concern for you last night.”
That gave him pause. “Violet did?”
“I don’t think she fully understands what it is, but she does understand that you feel worse when you don’t use it.” Knives set the pan on the stove and turned the knob on the front. It took a moment for the gas to click and turn back on. When the flame finally appeared, he looked back towards Vash only to see him sitting back upright, face twisted into something like concern. “Vash?”
“I try really hard to hide these kinds of things from them, but they always find out anyway.” Vash said. “How do they notice so much? They’re still so little.”
“They do seem to know more than you think they do.”
Vash gave a short huff of a laugh at that. “Did she tell you anything else?”
“She did mention to me that you and the preacher have fights.”
Vash balked at him. “Fights? She told you that?”
“She told me that she hears you two fighting sometimes, specifically about your medication.”
“How did she-”
“Through the door.” Knives answered before Vash could finish asking the question.
“I don’t get her sometimes. I’ve seen her hiding around the corner before, but I don’t know why she does that. What’s the point in sneaking around?” Vash looked back to Knives, and suddenly looked annoyed. “Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything?” He’d thought about saying something about how they snuck around on the ship intentionally seeking out things they had no business meddling with. But he hadn’t spoken any of it.
“It was your face. Shut it up. But… thanks for passing that on, I guess. I’ll be more careful.”
“Do you really need to be? Do you really fight that often?”
Vash narrowed his eyes at Knives and gave him a long calculating look. “What are you trying to play at?”
“Nothing.” Knives said, “Can I not just be concerned?”
“We don’t fight. Not like that - and I wouldn’t call what Violet was talking about a fight in the first place.”
To be fair, the word that Violet had used hadn’t been fight in the first place. Maybe Knives had been wrong to make the leap between what he had been told and what he had imagined, but it felt a bit late to correct himself. “Then what would you call it?”
“I don’t know. Bitching at each other?”
“And that’s not fighting?”
“No. We used to do that. This isn’t the same.” Vash dragged a hand down his face, looking about as drained as Knives had felt that morning. “It was way back before we lived here, when we were still traveling. It was over things that just don’t matter anymore.”
“Such as?”
“Running. Where we were going next, what happened whenever I’d get recognized or hurt. Things like that.” Vash shook his head. “Last night was just… It was harmless.”
Knives tried and failed to imagine what a harmless argument would even look like. There wasn’t ever anyone around for Rem to disagree with besides himself and Vash, and there were precious few times that she’d ever spoken to them with anything approaching anger. This discussion felt anything but meaningless as well.
Though… his mind did drift to a dinner they’d all sat down together for not long before. Something of a slap-fight had erupted between Wolfwood and Vash over the last bread roll. The blows didn’t land hard and it’d looked closer to play than to violence. Was it something like that that’d gotten Violet worried? She and Ava had found that incident to be funny, though. Giggling as they watched their parents fight like children themselves. Perhaps that should be concerning, now that he thought about it.
“So you’re making this much trouble out of nothing… why?” Knives asked for what felt like the hundredth time. Prying answers out of Vash didn’t feel all that different from speaking to the children. “Does it really matter if you lose a day to sleep? Or do you just prefer being in pain?”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Knives felt his temper begin to spike, frustration steadily growing with each stop Vash tried to put on the conversation. This wasn’t going how he planned. It didn’t feel like it was helping much of anything. “You’re clearly the reason that these arguments are happening. If you’re causing this much concern over something harmless then why not just give in?”
“I did.” Vash stressed the word, clearly just as frustrated with Knives as he was with him. “Did you just miss that whole part?”
“But you’ll make an ordeal out of it again next time still, won’t you?” Knives didn’t intend to sound like he was accusing Vash of anything, but once he heard himself he knew what he’d said. And at that point, why not keep going? “You aren’t helping anyone by behaving like this. Does it really matter that much if you lose a day or two to drowsiness? Or do you just prefer to suffer through it and make everyone else have to bear with it?”
“Why do you get to do this?”
“Do what?” Knives demanded, “Ask questions? Worry?”
“Yes!” Vash hissed to keep from yelling instead. “I don’t get it. You show up out of nowhere like nothing happened at all. The last time I saw you we were trying to kill each other, did you forget that? But now you’re here in my kitchen making pancakes while you lecture me over things you don’t know anything about!”
“The last time I saw you was yesterday. You told me to be careful before I left.”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I mean.”
“I do. But that was years ago. And that time, the last thing I remember doing was saving you.” Knives reminded Vash that it actually wasn’t Vash that showed mercy the last time they fought. “I know that it doesn’t change things. But I didn’t actually want you to die. I didn’t want to be the one left behind.”
“Then what did you want?”
“I don’t know what I wanted before. But now I want you to have this.” Knives gestured to the room around them - to the house, the town, to every last detail of the life he led now. “A human life. Isn’t that what you’ve been wanting ever since the beginning?”
“I never really thought I’d have it, but it is.” Vash admitted. “I just don’t understand why you’re here in it.”
Oh. Knives felt the fight drain out of him at that. He hadn’t expected Vash to be so blunt about it, but he hadn’t earned anything less than that. “Do you…”
“Do I what?”
Violet had asked him if he was going to leave just that morning, and when he would. He hadn’t meant to lie to her. “Do you want me to leave?” Knives felt small when he asked.
Bracing himself to be told to pack his things and find his own way out, Knives wasn’t expecting to see guilt cross over his face.
Vash didn’t say no. He didn’t ask him to stay, and he didn’t take back what he said. “You forgot the salt.” But he didn’t say yes, either.
“You didn’t mention salt.”
“Sorry.” Vash apologized, and Knives thought that just maybe it wasn’t for forgetting something so small.
The pan had grown too hot to use while they’d argued. The butter he’d left in it to melt had turned black while his back was turned. The pancake batter had begun to rise, too. There was nothing to do for it but to wait for the pan to cool enough to wash out what had burnt and start with a fresh one.
As he ladled in enough batter for the first pancake, he heard Vash sigh. Glancing over, he saw how Vash’s posture had changed again. He leaned forward against the counter so it could hold his weight up for him.
“You’re in pain.”
“Yeah.” Vash admitted to it, at least. “Low-hanging clouds. It’s going to last a while.”
“At risk of starting another argument,” Knives watched the batter rather than waiting to see Vash bristle up all over again, “can you not have another dose? How often are you able to use it?”
“As much as I want.” Vash answered him easily, too tired now to put up any more of a fight. “I’ll take more later. If it gets worse.”
Well, it was something at least.
“How much work is there to do here?” Knives asked instead of pressing further about his pain. “To clean up after the rain?”
“Not too much. It ended up just sounding worse than it was. You don’t need to worry, though. I’m not going to put you to work right away, you can have the day off.”
“That’s not it.” Knives saw bubbles start to form, and tried to flip it over. Uncooked batter splattered to the edges of the pain. He cursed when he saw the color on the underside hadn’t even begun to darken. “I told Aurie that I’d repair a leak in the roof.”
“Really?” Knives couldn’t blame him for the surprise in his voice, but that didn’t mean he could be a little irritated with it. He helped plenty around the house, was it really so odd for him to offer his help elsewhere? “Did she ask you to do that?”
“No, I decided to.”
“For money, then? Knives, don’t-”
“What use is her money to me?” Knives snapped at his brother, “I just want to repay the favor. She didn’t have to shelter me yesterday, but she did. I’d rather not have any debt to her.”
Vash was quiet for a moment.
“It’d go faster with another set of hands.” He commented. “Mind if I came along?”
Knives’ first reaction was to deny the request outright. He didn’t need a babysitter to follow behind him and ensure that he keeps himself in line. But he just about managed to hold his tongue. That wasn’t Vash’s intention, he knew that. It was an apology, an olive branch of sorts. And anyway, Aurie had told him to actually take some time to spend with Vash.
It would only worsen things if he said no. It might worsen them if he accepted, too. But there was a chance that it could improve them, too. “I won’t stop you.”
Vash went silent after that. All that was left for Knives to do was finish breakfast, and he could probably take it from there. After all, it wouldn’t do to abandon the task now. Not after he’d put so much effort into taking over for it. So he waited for the first one to cook while Vash watched and rested.
Another flip showed that the pancake had turned near black, and stabbing it with the edge of the spatula made it clear that it hadn’t cooked on the inside at all when raw batter leaked out from the center. Frustrated, Knives intended on asking Vash for some instruction or advice at the very least - but before he could speak found him once again laying over the counter, arms pillowing his head. Eyes closed and breathing gently.
He was on his own, then. Knives looked at the burnt cake in the pan and at the amount of batter that was still left bubbling in the mixing bowl.
Knives decided he was too tired for this shit. The pancakes that Wolfwood made were always nice to look at, golden brown and shaped in a circle and not like the weird blob that he had in the pan. But not everything they made was pretty. Vash had made some unfortunate looking ones in the past and to be completely frank about the way that the gravy that Wolfwood poured over biscuits some mornings looked… Well, it looked like white vomit. So why would his pancakes need to be pretty if they were going to get smothered in butter and lumpy apple butter?
Mind made up, Knives took the spatula and cut the pancake up into small pieces and pushed them around on the pan until each little piece was fully cooked. The whole process went much faster like that. Before too much time had passed, Knives scooped the final batch of pancake onto a plate.
Just as he was finishing up and preparing to call the others to eat, Wolfwood appeared in the doorway, knocking softly on the moulding to announce himself.
“It’s too quiet in here, I’m getting worried-”
“Silence.” Knives hissed to quiet him with a gesture to where Vash still slept.
“Oh.” Wolfwood looked relieved if not surprised to see why exactly the noise from the kitchen of them bickering had gone so quiet for so long. The preacher stepped quietly around the counter to peer at what Knives had made. “I thought you were making pancakes. What is that?” He whispered.
“They are pancakes.”
“What happened to them?”
“They wouldn’t flip properly.” Knives said in way of explanation. “Is it a problem? They’ll taste the same either way.”
“If you say so. Scrambled pancakes it is, then.” Wolfwood accepted the mass of egg like bread with only the minimal amount of side-eye and turned his attention back towards Vash. “I’m going to drag him upstairs so he can sleep properly. I’ll send the girls down if it’s all ready.”
“It is.” Knives said while Wolfwood worked on waking Vash up just enough to make it easier to haul him up the stairs. “Thank you.”
“Why?” One of Vash’s arms slung over his shoulder, Wolfwood spared him one last look back before he left. “You’re the one that made breakfast.”
Something about watching the preacher help Vash to bed made Knives feel ill. He could only take so many reminders about the consequences that his actions had on Vash’s life in just a day. But this was more than just a reminder. It wasn’t like watching Vash take time to work sand and soil out from between the joints of his mechanical arm, or when he’d stretch a little too far to reach what he needed from a shelf and wince when scar tissue pulled taut. This was a little more than just the average day-to-day impact that his choices (all of his effort over every single year that he had lived that all amounted to nothing) had made on Vash’s life. Those scars would never fade, neither he nor Vash had the power reserves left to fade them away. And if they were right to think that they would age and die just as humans would now that those reserves were empty, the pain and struggles that the old wounds gave him would only worsen with time.
And Knives would only be able to watch as Vash’s live only grew more difficult.
Knives had just set out the last of the silverware when Ava came crashing into the room with Violet trailing just behind. Chair legs squeaked across the floors as they girls climbed in and scooted them forward instead of pushing them in the right way.
He saw confusion cross over their faces as they stared at the piles of not-pancakes that he scooped onto their plates. It was a little difficult to keep from being offended by the long look the two shared before they gave in and tried them.
“Knives?” Violet spoke up just as he finished setting a place for Wolfwood and sat down with his own plate. When he looked over at the child, she had apple butter smeared across her mouth.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” She said to him before returning to her breakfast like nothing had changed.
With that and nothing more, a little bit of the ice that’d be forming in his chest melted away. There was no undoing any of the damage he’d inflicted on Vash or the planet, but maybe there was a better way to atone for what he’d done than isolation and meaningless apologies. “You’re welcome, Violet.”